Sunday, 21 April 2013

AR-15 giveaway shut down: Facebook shuts down gun store's page, no reason given, Erik Lowry was running a contest on Facebook that was going to reward the winner with a gun. An AR-15 giveaway has actually forced the shut down of the Facebook page for Pittsburgh Tactical Firearms, and Lowry really isn't entirely sure as to the reasoning behind it, according to The Blaze on April 21, 2013.

The contest appeared to have started months ago, and things seemed to be running fine. Now, the Facebook page for the store has been taken down entirely, and there is still no word as to what's going on. Lowry's secondary page for PGH has also been shut down.

SEE: Eighth grader suspended and jailed for wearing an NRA T-shirt to school

A mere three days ago, Lowry had phone calls and emails asking him where his company's Facebook page had gone. PGH has more than 27,000 followers and the page was used to keep them all updated on thing regarding his store, updates on news, and other such things.

Lowry can't figure everything out, but he believes that the AR-15 giveaway may have something to do with the shut down. He has another reason too, and he believes that it could be because of a group called Vocativ.

Vocativ published a story about gun stores having Facebook pages - many of which have been shut down - that are doing gun giveaways. Vocativ's article and contacting Facebook may have resulted in the pages, such as Lowry's with the AR-15 giveaway, being shut down.

Apparently, the giveaways violated the terms of service for Facebook. First, there was the issue of a giveaway not happening through their App. Secondly, Facebook's ad guideline says that "Ads may not promote the sale or use of weapons, ammunition, or explosives."

Lowry says that no firearm or ammunition transactions were done through the site. He said that the PGH page was merely for updates and things in the store, but nothing ever was transacted directly through Facebook.

"There are no guidelines that says you can't giveaway guns," Lowry said.

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